It's a snowy day here in paradise valley but it's brought out my nerd, which doesn't take much.
I watched a fun featurette that has recently been posted online detailing the life and times of the Star Wars lightsaber. I love star wars, so this was great stuff to watch. Most people may find it passingly interesting or simply not care. The evolution of the lightsaber is in part, the evolution of special effects. It starts with a vision and an idea, as you try to implement it you come across hurtles and often by accident you find solutions. Your finished product is much more refined than what you began with and the process is as beneficial as the product.
It is, of course, April Fool's day as well. I've read several articles about various tricks that have been played today and in the past. A particularly clever trick that has been unearthed from the past came from a 1957 BBC documentary. The narrator, in all his glorious British enunciation tells us about the recent spaghetti crop, that was very fruitful that year. Spaghetti farming, in case you were wondering, is a long-held family tradition in part of Italy and Sweden where spaghetti noodles are hand picked for freshness.
Other articles discussed how silly or stupid April fools is and another one discussed why so many tech companies get involved with it. Some examples include Honda's DIY car assembly. Yep, 180,000 parts to assemble in your home. Google had over a dozen different pranks. A beer company crafted a new draft made with helium and so forth. I hope your April 1st was enjoyable and fun either way.
Another article that was more mildly related to my work (home security and automation products) came from a discussion about a new YouTube video for the channel "Rated RR", a channel famous for it's propensity to blow up nearly anything- and in high-definition, heart-stopping, slow-motion! They basically demonstrated the ability to hack into everyday household items like a thermostat, video camera etc. While it was interesting the idea of hacking into someone's electronic systems I don't think anyone will be loading their thermostats with C4 like these fellows did. Regardless, explosions are fun.
In other news, Apple is suing Samsung, again. More patent problems, it's billions of dollars worth of stuff, could be fun, or not.
Stephen Colbert almost lost "The Colber Report" but not really.
Russia's economy is on the downhill turn.
Some movies don't need special effects to be awesome. (see Christopher Nolan)
And finally, putting yourself in cryogenic sleep isn't the best idea. It sounds really cool, but don't count on coming back from it.
Happy Spring, Merry April.
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